


Falling for you, dropping so quickly

by EponineTheStrange (gallifreyandglowclouds)



Category: Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2013-06-07
Packaged: 2017-12-14 04:50:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/832947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallifreyandglowclouds/pseuds/EponineTheStrange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Karen has asked Matt to run lines with her for her newest project. He decides to change a few words in the script he’s reading and make it be him declaring his love for her. At first she is confused (“those aren’t the lines!”) but she quickly catches on. A few years later, Matt asks Karen to run lines with him for his newest project, but the script he hands her is actually one he wrote himself, and is him proposing to her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling for you, dropping so quickly

”I need your help,” Karen says, dumping her purse and jacket by Matt’s front door. Being back in London is nice; the fact that Matt’s let her sleep on his couch rent-free is even better. 

He’s looking at his newest  _Doctor Who_ script, but immediately drops what he’s doing when he hears her. 

“We are running lines,” she says, “because the director is getting mad at me because I keep screwing them up. So I’m sitting here with you and we are not getting up until I have mastered this damn thing.” 

He nods, and she passes him her script. He scans it, briefly, and his mouth quirks up in a smile, as if he’s planning something. Karen’s so tired that she doesn’t even bother being suspicious. 

It’s this scene where she’s talking to a roommate, trying to work through complicated feelings for another female friend. “It’s just… I can’t really figure things out. I don’t know if it’s love or if it’s lust or some kind of weird combination of the two.” 

“Perhaps you could talk to him about it,” Matt reads from the script, and she forgives him the pronoun slip-up (she’s fairly certain it should be she) and keeps going.

“But it’s hard, and I’m afraid,” Karen replied.

“Maybe he’s afraid too,” Matt replies, and okay, now she’s pretty sure he’s doing it on purpose.

“Side note: I think I’m talking about a girl here, Matt,” Karen says, “so the correct pronoun would be she.”

He shoots her an unreadable look and then his eyes travel back to the script.

“I don’t know,” Karen says, keeping up with where she’s pretty sure she is in the script. “I don’t want to ruin our friendship. I’d regret never again more than I would regret if only. But at the same time, it just feels like it’d be pushing something down in my heart that isn’t meant to be pushed down, you know?” 

“Think about this - maybe he feels the same way. Maybe all those years ago, you were in a little room in Cardiff, and he met you for the first time, and he thought that you were basically made of fireworks and wonder and he could barely keep up with you. Maybe he kept on trying to get closer and closer, and you two became the best of friends, but maybe he’s got the same feeling pushed down in his heart and he always feels like you guys were meant to be more. And then you went away, and everything got thrown in to question, because he now feels regret that he never had the courage to confess to you what he was feeling, and now he thinks that he’s lost his chance, but suddenly you’ve waltzed back in to his life, and perhaps he’s contemplating his next move, but maybe he needs you to make the first one.” 

About midway through the soliloquy, she catches on to what she’s pretty sure is going on and her mouth goes a bit dry, and she starts to reflect on all that’s happened between the two of them since 2009 and that little bit of her heart that keeps telling her she’s running in the right direction when she runs toward Matt is yelling at her, loud and clear,  _this is your chance, idiot, because he’s cryptically laying out his feelings and maybe it’s time you do the same._

“Maybe I always knew a little bit,” she says, smiling coyly at him to try and let him know that the game is up, “but circumstances conspired against us. I mean, he was in a relationship, and for a long time, so was I. And then life just got in the way, but there’s always that little part of your heart that says that you’re making a mistake going away, but now I’m back and I’m pretty sure I’m ready to move forward if he is.” 

There’s a pause, and Matt looks shocked, absolutely floored, as if he thought that she was going to run away. Well she isn’t, not this time, and hopefully not ever. 

“Kaz.” 

“Matt.” 

“Do you actually…” he starts, and then trails off.

“Of course, I do, stupid.” 

He looks a bit distressed, so she leans in and kisses him for all she’s worth, and he squeaks in surprise a bit at the beginning but then he’s right along there with her, and it takes her about twenty-four hours longer to get those lines than it might have in any other circumstance, but oh is it worth it.

* * *

A few years later, he enters their apartment waving a script in his hand. 

“Kazza,” he says, as he takes off his coat, “I need your help with some lines for a movie I’m thinking of auditioning for.” 

“Okay,” she yells back from the kitchen, and the cookies that she’s been trying to bake aren’t really going all that well so she decides to help him out. 

“It’s short,” she says as he hands her the script. 

“It’s just for the audition. Hopefully they’ll give me an actual script if I get the part.” 

“Okay,” she says, and sits down on the couch beside him. 

He starts reading from the script. “You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about us.” 

“Oh?” she says, reading from the other part. “What about?” 

“Well, we’ve been living together for a long time.” 

“Yeah.” 

“And we’re very committed to each other.” 

“I love you as much as I did on the first day we met.” She smiles at that, because as cheesy as it is (she didn’t know he was auditioning for a rom-com) it’s fairly accurate in describing her feelings about him.

“So if I asked you for forever, asked you if we could spend all of our lives together, what would you say?” 

She’s beginning to read from the script again but stops, because he’s trying to get something out of his pocket. 

Oh. He’s trying to get a little velvet box out of his pocket, and oh. He’s doing that thing where he makes art imitate life. That tends to work out pretty well for her, though. He gets down on one knee in front of her, and with shaking hands opens the little box.

It’s a ring - what did she expect? He just set up a marriage proposal in a script. Points for creativity. Her eyes start to tear up, and he’s not saying anything, so she just nods. 

“Yes, Matt, absolutely yes. And don’t tell me now that this is just for the script, or I will kick you where it hurts.” 

“This is certainly for real,” he says, and gently slips the ring on her finger and then kisses her hand. He then looks up at her, smiles like a little kid and says, “We’re getting married.” 

She nods because she couldn’t make herself form words if she tried. He kisses her then, slow and sweet, and she’s already making plans for the next script she’ll write to surprise him with something.


End file.
